PUNISHMENT FAIR FOR KG, SHAQ

John Karalis of the Boston Examiner, and founder of the Celtics blog Red's Army recently wrote an article about Kevin Garnett's suspension as being unwarranted for his slap of Andrew Bogut last week. While Karalis does make some good points about Pat Riley and the Heat's thuggish basketball in the 1990's forcing the NBA into the current flagrant foul system, he is wrong about KG.

KG was clearly hit on the play and then reached out and gave Bogut a little slap in the face. Saying that Garnett wasn't looking at Bogut and therefore didn't mean to hit him is ridiculous. Watch his face after he reaches out at the Bucks center, he stares him down. Looks like he meant to hit him to me. While Garnett may have "just been hit twice", that isn't an excuse to respond. In hockey players who retaliate often get penalties for the response rather than the original hit. Garnett should have kept his cool and then he'd be playing tonight against the Knicks.

Furthermore, the article argues that Shaq shouldn't have been ejected for his hit on Rodney Stuckey because it was accidental. I agree that Shaq shouldn't be suspended or anything like that, but the ejection was warranted. It was similar to Marvin Williams' hit on Rajon Rondo in the playoffs last year, and Williams was ejected from that--a decisive playoff game. O'Neal clearly didn't mean to hit Stuckey in that fashion, but accident or not Shaq deserved to go.